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Still, I’m not comfortable with the term. So I now suggest a compromise; I’d like to call it by its acronym, spark, and
I’ll tell you why. Spark is synonymous with vigor, flash, energy, generator. To spark is to trigger, to set off, to begin,
to launch. Defining, a spark is a zone assigned and designed to trigger the launching of industries.
So, let me call the Agri-Science Park of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT) the Agri-Spark, the Science & Technology Park of the University of the Philippines Los Baños the
Spark of UP Los Baños. And now I can tell you that this has indeed
My conclusion? Whoever
thought of ‘science park’ was
thinking with his mind
adumbrating, dictionary out of
sight. The American Heritage
Dictionary tells me a science
park is an industrial zone,
manufacturing quarter.
Science doesn’t stop there – it
produces, reproduces,
multiplies goods, industrial or
consumer goods, things to
eat, employ, experiment with,
exploit, exhaust. Consider: a
park is an area of land set
aside for public use;
reconsider, a science park is
not for public use;
it is for private use.
sparked a new idea in me: the Spark of UP Los Baños ought to be
patterned after the Agri-Spark of ICRISAT if UP Los Baños knows
what’s good for her.
By our definition, the Spark of UP Los Baños should be not simply a
learning place, a gathering place, but a launching pad for new
enterprises, new industries, innovations. The Spark, wherever it is,
should trigger off the creation of new teams made up of private
interest, science and public service.
That’s exactly what the Agri-Spark of ICRISAT is in its campus in Andhra
Pradesh, India. A model spark that UP Los Baños ought to investigate,
draw conclusions from, and emulate in her own campus.
Out of separate pieces called Hybrid Parents Research Consortium
(HPRC), Agri-Business Incubator (ABI), Ag-Biotech Innovation Center
(AIC), Bioproducts Research Consortium (BRC), SAT Eco-Venture arose
the concept of the Agri-Spark of ICRISAT, which was set up 2003
December as a flagship initiative of the institute (agrisciencepark.icrisat.org).
The initiative signed an agreement with the
Government of Andhra Pradesh to become part of the Genome Valley
project, positioned as the agriculture-biotech hub of the Valley.
Through the initiative, ICRISAT proposes to transfer technologies, enter
into joint ventures with the private sector, to develop and
commercialize innovations and knowledge; it will ‘act as the umbrella
for all the partnership related work done at ICRISAT in order to integrate
the approach into one framework.’ It must be noted that the initiative
is ‘to ultimately benefit the poorest of the poor.’
That is a given; whatever ICRISAT does, it must ultimately improve the lives of the very poor in the semi-arid tropics
where millions of families eke out their living under deprived conditions and circumstances.
That said, there is one other thing I would like to mention here, and it is about ICRISAT often using ‘partner’ or
‘partnership’ or ‘partnering’ when it comes to working in tandem with other institutions, groups or sectors. That’s a
Science Parks, Stops